» President Lee Myeong-bak, center, looks on as Defense Minister Kim Tae-yong, left, speaks with
Foreign Minister Yu Myung-whan at the Cheong Wa Dae, May 18.
The clouds of war are gathering in inter-Korean relations as the Lee Myung-bak
administration has reportedly planned to effectively announce Thursday that the
sinking of the Cheonan was caused by a North Korean torpedo attack. Clashing in
words and deeds, North Korean and South Korean authorities are being rapidly
drawn into a hair-trigger crisis situation. While North Korea is still only at the
level of making warnings and threats to South Korea in words, South Korea has
already effectively stepped into action.
The South Korean government has taken the countermeasure of having all South
Korean personnel staying in North Korea withdraw with the exception of those in
the Kaesong Industrial Complex and Mt. Kumgang tourism zone. An excavation
team of 11 South Koreans returned home Tuesday after working with North Korea
on an excavation study at Manwoldae, a Goryeo Royal Palace site in Kaesong.
They were initially scheduled to carry on the study through June 10.
“The government ordered us to withdraw by today, citing the recent deterioration
of inter-Korean relations,” said an official with the excavation team.
Workers collecting sand from the East and West Seas off North Korea also
returned home between Friday and Sunday. Forty-six people on seven collection
vessels had been working in Haeju on the West Sea, while another eighteen
people on two vessels had been working in Kosong on the East Sea.
A Unification Ministry official hinted at an effective “withdrawal order,” saying that the administration has pleaded with South Korean workers staying in North Korea to attend to their physical safety. As of Tuesday, there were a total of 892 South Korean workers staying in North Korea, including 877 at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, 14 at the Mt. Kumsang tourism zone, and one Pyeonghwa Motors administrator in Pyongyang.
The Unification Ministry had delivered recommendations to refrain from goods
deliveries, visits to North Korea and new investment on May 11 and 12 to
hundreds of companies commissioned to do processing and trade for North Korea.
Since then, there have been no deliveries from the companies in question. The
ministry also sent notification on May 14 to ten government offices and
ministries, including the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, indicating
that they should suspend any budgeted North Korea projects.
The reaction from North Korea has been vehement.
“South Choson’s puppet conservative thugs are making a strained link between
the sinking of the puppet army’s warship and us and are driving the political
situation to the utmost extreme of confrontation,” said North Korean Supreme
People’s Assembly Standing Committee Vice Chairman Yang Hyong-sop on
Monday. “We will not simply stand by and watch.”
“The South bears full responsibility for the catastrophic aftereffects that will be
summoned by a resumption of psychological warfare against the North,” said a
North Korean delegation leader for the inter-Korean general-level military talks on Sunday in a message to South Korea. “As warned, we will take real measures
over and above the level of limiting and blocking the land passage of Southern
workers at North-South administration zones in the East and West Sea regions.”
This was a warning of a counter response in connection with a plan under
examination by South Korean military authorities to resume propaganda
broadcasts to North Korea, and the distribution of flyers to North Korea by certain
private groups. In essence, the Kaesong Industrial Complex is now a target.
Voices of concern about this sharp confrontation between North Korea and South
Korea are also keen within the government.
“It is impossible to attempt to gauge where this will end,” said one government
official.
“Since everything is taking place in a top-down manner, the scope of action for
the working-level offices is narrow,” said another government official.
This seems to indicate that the recent hardline measures against North Korea are being directed by the Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office in South Korea or Blue House).
Experts have continued to call for a rational response.
“The administration’s recent measures are an ideologically driven act of self-
destruction that tears down infrastructure in inter-Korean relations that was
established with great difficulty over two decades following the July 7 Declaration
by the Roh Tae-woo administration in 1988,” said Inje University Professor Kim
Yeon-chul.
“For the sake of peace, a balance must be found between solid security on one
side and interchange and cooperation on the other,” said University of North
Korean Studies Professor Yang Mu-jin. “Even if the Defense Ministry and Foreign
Ministry are calling for pressure on North Korea, the Unification Ministry is the last bulwark for inter-Korean relations, and it must not sever the thread of
interchange and cooperation.”
“If private interchange and cooperation and the Kaesong Industrial Complex are
halted, after serving as a safety valve for inter-Korean relations even amid the
deteriorating relations between authorities since the Lee Myung-bak
administration took office, catastrophe becomes inevitable,” said an expert at one institute who request anonymity. “I am fearful of what historical disaster will be brought about by the ignorance and incompetence of conservative groups that
find their identity in North Korea-bashing at a time when a carefully crafted North
Korea strategy is urgently needed.”
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